---
title: ‘Well, it wouldn’t be very hard to do that,’ said the Master Thief. — The Red Fairy Book · tree and pragmatics
description: ‘Well, it wouldn’t be very hard to do that,’ said the Master Thief. Who acts: it, Master Thief. A sentence of «The Red Fairy Book» by Andrew Lang, The Master Thief, with its dependency tree and the pragmatics of every clause.
---

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# The Red Fairy Book, The Master Thief, sentence 132

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‘Well, it wouldn’t be very hard to do that,’ said the Master Thief.

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**Who acts:** it, Master Thief · **What happens:** not be, do, say · **To what, where:** that · **Speech:** someone speaks here

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This is a sentence of «The Red Fairy Book» by Andrew Lang, The Master Thief. The page gives its syntax tree — a dependency tree in the style of Universal Dependencies — and its pragmatics clause by clause: who acts (it, Master Thief), what happens, when and where, as Mova's frames read it from the tree.

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**Parsed by Mova, not checked by a teacher.** This tree is Mova's own parse (the `en` model, on the CPU, when the site is built); it may be wrong.

## The tree {#tree}

```conllu
# sent_id = book:pg540:9:132
# text = ‘Well, it wouldn’t be very hard to do that,’ said the Master Thief.
1	‘	'	PUNCT	``	_	9	punct	_	SpaceAfter=No
2	Well	well	INTJ	UH	_	9	discourse	_	SpaceAfter=No
3	,	,	PUNCT	,	_	2	punct	_	_
4	it	it	PRON	PRP	Case=Nom|Gender=Neut|Number=Sing|Person=3|PronType=Prs	9	nsubj	_	_
5	would	would	AUX	MD	VerbForm=Fin	9	aux	_	SpaceAfter=No
6	n’t	not	PART	RB	Polarity=Neg	9	advmod	_	_
7	be	be	AUX	VB	VerbForm=Inf	9	cop	_	_
8	very	very	ADV	RB	_	9	advmod	_	_
9	hard	hard	ADJ	JJ	Degree=Pos	15	ccomp	_	_
10	to	to	PART	TO	_	11	mark	_	_
11	do	do	VERB	VB	VerbForm=Inf	9	xcomp	_	_
12	that	that	PRON	DT	Number=Sing|PronType=Dem	11	obj	_	SpaceAfter=No
13	,	,	PUNCT	,	_	9	punct	_	SpaceAfter=No
14	’	'	PUNCT	''	_	9	punct	_	_
15	said	say	VERB	VBD	Mood=Ind|Number=Sing|Person=3|Tense=Past|VerbForm=Fin	0	root	_	_
16	the	the	DET	DT	Definite=Def|PronType=Art	18	det	_	_
17	Master	Master	PROPN	NNP	Number=Sing	18	compound	_	_
18	Thief	Thief	PROPN	NNP	Number=Sing	15	nsubj	_	SpaceAfter=No
19	.	.	PUNCT	.	_	15	punct	_	_
```

## Pragmatics {#pragmatics}

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| # | verb | tense, mood | who | what, whom | to whom | where | when | other | roles by |
| --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- |
| 1 | **not** **is** | would | it |  |  |  |  | hard *property* | tree rules |
| 2 | **do** | to-infinitive |  | that |  |  |  |  | vn act-114-1 «NP V NP»: agent=Agent that=Eventuality |
| 3 | **say** *speech: assert* | past | the Master Thief |  |  |  |  |  | vn say-37.7-1-1 «NP V that S»: agent=Agent |

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One row per clause the reader finds. «not said here»: a role filled from the clause above. «roles by»: a VerbNet class and frame when one fits the verb, else the reader's rules on the tree.

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**Text:** «The Red Fairy Book» by Andrew Lang, Project Gutenberg book 540 (public domain in the USA). **Tree:** Mova's own parse, Elamur Cosmic License. **Frames:** Mova's frames reader (`prag`), the chapter read in order.

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